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Daily Prompt: Buffalo Nickel 2007

Today’s Daily Prompt: Buffalo Nickel sounds like a fun challenge that had me reaching for my purse just to see what year the coin I randomly picked was from. It was 2007. As I actually remember what I was doing then and as that was one of the most exciting years in my life I felt inspired to write about it.

Hungarian Parliament as seen from the balcony

In 2006 I went to Budapest, on an expat assignment. My department was moving around 40 jobs from the UK to Hungary and I was one of the supervisors who had the job of setting up the new teams. There were 14 people in my team doing about 5 or 6 different jobs and they were all new! Anyone who has worked for a large company can imagine the logistics of getting this number of new people all at the same time, getting everyone trained, dealing with cultural differences and then to top it all off actually move countries too.

The people we selected for the jobs were highly educated, multilingual and for the most part in their early to mid twenties. After a few months we were starting to feel more comfortable and established but still had to deal with a high number of issues such as resignations, lack of expertise and maternity breaks. We were never quite sure what surprise each day would bring. In 2007 I had three of my team go on maternity leave within a few short months of each other and I had the first resignation towards the end of the year. It was a very challenging time but that was what made the whole experience so rewarding.

On a personal note I was loving life in Budapest. We lived in an amazing big, old and almost empty building, very close to the Parliament and the river Danube. Budapest is a vibrant city and living so centrally I did not need to go far to be entertained in some form or another. From my balcony I witnessed marathon running, film making, political demonstrations and a miscellany of other events.

For the first time in my life, I went to drawing classes and started painting. I was also walking a lot and exploring the beautiful city.

I was enjoying my job, making friends, learning new hobbies – I can truly say that 2007 was one of the most memorable years I had on both a personal and a professional level!